I don’t own a smartphone. I’m computer illiterate enough as it is, so the thought of trying to figure out all the bells and whistles on the tiny screen of the latest whiz-bang technological marvel holds no appeal whatever.

Besides, there’s something disconcerting about the idea of a handheld device holding my entire life’s data. It’s too easy for something like that to get lost. Or stolen. Or scanned. Or confiscated.

In short, our private lives are exposed enough as it is to anyone who wants to do a little snooping. I don’t need to make it any easier by having a smartphone.

That said, there’s no shortage of shockingly invasive tactics our government is employing to keep track of its servants … er, citizens. In fact, it seems that more and more of what our government is doing is keeping track – close track – of what we’re all up to.

Our traveling is monitored through license plates and GPS systems. Our credit card purchases are monitored. Our phone calls are monitored. Our social media sites are monitored. Our search engines and online meanderings are monitored. In short, there is very little the government doesn’t know about everyone. Even the occasional hermit living unplugged in the deep woods is subject to visits from data collectors.

This week it was reported that “The director of the National Security Agency says the agency collects data from social networks and other private databases to hunt terror suspects but is not using the information to build dossiers, or personal files, on Americans.” Uh-huh.

Additionally: “Top U.S. intelligence officials are revealing more about their spying in an effort to defend the National Security Agency from charges that it has invaded the privacy of Americans on a mass scale. Yet the latest disclosure – the NSA tried to track Americans’ cell phone locations – has only added to the concerns of lawmakers” [emphasis added].

Why is this happening? What’s with the government’s fascination – no, obsession – with keeping tabs on anything and everything we do?

There is endless speculation, of course, but ultimately it is to prevent a citizen uprising.

Like slave owners, our overseers are petrified that we will revolt. History has shown, over and over again, that a people can take oppression for only so long before they rise up in explosive anger. That is, after all, what the Declaration of Independence was all about. The American Revolution was a revolution against its own government.

Whether our politicians are willing to admit it or not, there is a deep cauldron of suppressed anger, fury and hatred among the citizens of this nation at the abuses they’ve suffered at the hands of intrusive government goons. Everything from TSA pat-downs to kick-in-the-door, middle-of-the-night thugs, there’s a lot of simmering resentment just waiting for the right spark to set it off.

Now with Obamacare being shoved down our throats, that level of anger is rising. We are being unconstitutionally forced to purchase something the vast majority of America simply doesn’t want. Supporters of Obamacare refuse to acknowledge that the ACA isn’t about providing health insurance to the uninsured; it’s about taking control of a vast portion of the American economy, skewing the balance of power in the tripod of government and using our most sensitive medical data against us to bring us to our knees.

Obamacare is just one iron in the fire. There are endless other examples of how much more government controlled our lives are becoming. What angers so many people is the phony excuses the government makes while imposing the most shockingly unconstitutional garbage on us. The favorite lie is these things are done to keep us “safe,” even to the point of mining Facebook and Twitter to “prevent crimes.” Prevent crime? What are they, mind readers? I’m guessing the “crime” they’re most anxious to prevent is a citizen revolt.

To this end, the government has many long-term projects. It has taken over public education with the dumbed-down revisionist Common Core to ensure that future servants … er, citizens … are educated according to strict government standards of stupidity and witlessness. Obamacare will deem endless millions of Americans “unfit” to own firearms based on vague pseudo-medical excuses. Everything from smart meters to drones is gathering information on the government’s behalf, to be used against us.

To quote Simon Black of Sovereign Man Blog, “This is all playing out with nearly perfect historical precision. Time and time again throughout history as once great empires accelerated their declines, governments have taken steps to protect their interests against the people. In the past, they have imposed curfews, disarmed the population, curtailed civil liberties and declared national emergencies, usually against some great faceless enemy from abroad who threatens their way of life.

“As it turns out, though, our great faceless enemy is not some mythical boogeyman living in a cave, nor some angry brown person who hates us for our freedoms … but the very people within the system who’ve taken an oath to ‘support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic’” [emphasis added].

What it comes down to is the government is terrified of us. Well over 100 million Americans own firearms and they aren’t about to give them up, particularly to a government bent on imposing a tyranny that will exceed the abuses of George III. So the threat of a citizen uprising remains, even as the government continues to chisel away at the foundation of rights and freedoms upon which this nation was built.

Now whether our government is “egging” people toward division, strife and discord in order to declare martial law and take over, I have no idea. I’m not privy to the internal logic of our government officials. But you know what? It wouldn’t surprise me. In the spirit of never letting a crisis go to waste (even if the crisis is manufactured), the government would happily seize the opportunity to suspend our rights and confiscate our resources.

So how is all this chicanery working for the government? A recent poll revealed 80 percent of the U.S. population has been trained to believe “the government is in charge of the people.” Only 8 percent believe “the people are in charge of the government.”

More than half of Americans own smartphones, but evidently those gadgets aren’t making us any smarter. Maybe people should use those technological marvels to actually read something useful, such as how and why the first American Revolution began.

Start by Googling, “When in the course of human events …” and see where it leads you. Who knows, you might even learn something.

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